I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to handling user equipment capability information.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP LTE systems, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), localized frequency division multiplexing (LFDM), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like.
In a wireless communication system, a Node B (or base station) may transmit data to a user equipment (UE) on the downlink and/or receive data from the UE on the uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the Node B to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the Node B. The Node B may also send control information (e.g., assignments of system resources) to the UE and/or a core network. Similarly, the UE may send control information to the Node B to support data transmission on the downlink and/or for other purposes.
One type of control information exchanged between the UE and Node B is the non-static capabilities of the UE. Conventionally, the device capabilities are exchanged when ever the UE enters the active state. Since the UE can enter an idle state multiple times when connected to the wireless communication system, the non-static capabilities of the UE can be transmitted multiple times during the connection. This transmission of device capabilities adds to the signaling load at the state transition and thus slows the time needed to make the transition.